Why let someone else determine your enjoyment? I got over that type of thinking in high school.
I am not too sure it was that.....I really drifted away from the rifle and started shooting other things. Then in seeing it in the back of the safe and seeing all the idiots playing with them....I just never really picked it back up again....really just forgot what it was like to shoot.
I dug it out years ago when my kid was still in high school and he shot it in CMP matches, while I shot other stupid stuff, MAS 36, and 49/56...trap door....G43....type 99.....I just enjoy being different and not following the crowd.
Not sure if I said it here, but back when I raced I was one of the few idiots that raced an Opel GT.....everyone else in their dog ran a Miata, or RX7....but nope not me, 100x the effort to go half as fast all while spending 5x as much.....then slowly getting better and better while changing this and that.
And really this is my mindset.....I don't want to just screw on go fast parts that everyone else has tested and tuned.....I want to discover that all myself, (I) am doing something, I developed those rods....that piston design....those roller rockers....they are all the the work of a few other like minded idiots that just want to do something themselves and not follow a trend. Really comes down to different people.
Gunz and I are the same way....I love working up loads for these not so common rifles....the home rolled 223 I make for my bolt rifle will not even fit in an AR mag.....it seems to like them long and pretty soft shooting. I have one carcano (another CMP veteran) that likes them loaded this way, and another that likes it loaded that way....flip the boxes and one will not chamber, and the other will be lucky if it hits mother earth if pointed straight down.
What really brought the AR back out was finding 3-4 boxes of 223 just sitting there....I had bought it back....20-ish years ago and it has just sat. I figured I would just shoot it up. I load for the bolt gun so I will leave that alone, lets find that AR.....so out it comes and off to shoot it.....in pretty short order I am dinging a 6" plate at 100 with no effort at all....till it got covered in mud and I could not see it anymore.
The rifle is just sitting there smoking, and I am thinking well perhaps I should get a cheapo to abuse like this....at least a new upper, but I am a bit shy on that....they are cheap enough just get the entire deal.
Will I turn into an AR fanboi....doubt it, I now see just how fantastic the world is outside of the AR and really have little interest in things new....really if I was not sitting on 3000+ rounds of 223 I doubt I would be typing this and would be off on a 10/22 thread making those folk steam from the ears
Same deal with the commie round....I don't have an AK or SKS but yet have THOUSANDS of rounds for it.....I keep looking at them, and think well a cheapo AK is only 600 likely as cheap as it is going to go....so why not.....just no interest.....I bought my Savage 99 in 243 for less than 500 a few weeks ago and that is a much more interesting gun to ME.
